Enhanced salt perception of soy sauce based on emulsion salt reduction strategy

High-salt diet led to a series of health issues, the development of low-salt products has attracted the attention of the food industry. Here, W 1 /O/W 2 emulsion was prepared for salt reduction in soy sauce. The stability of emulsion was investigated in this work, the results indicated that pasteurization and storage at 4 °C effectively contributed to enhancing the stability of the W 1 /O/W 2 emulsion. Moreover, the findings of electronic nose, electronic tongue, quantitative descriptive analysis and gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry demonstrated that salt-reduced soy sauce maintained an excellent flavor. Compared with the control groups, the aldehydes and alcohols content in salt-reduced soy sauce increased. Notably, quantitative descriptive analysis showed that W 1 /O/W 2 emulsion enhanced the saltiness perception of salt-reduced soy sauce, in which two salt-reduced soy sauce achieved 19.36% and 19.23% salinity reduction respectively and possessed the salinity perception was similar to the control groups. Furthermore, salt-reduced soy sauce exhibited robust stability over 28 days of storage. These findings underscored the potential of double emulsion for salt-reduced soy sauce formulations and will provide new insights into salt reduction strategies. The W 1 /O/W 2 emulsion provides theoretical basis for promoting healthy diet of consumers and improving public health. • The saltiness perception of salt-reduced soy sauce was enhanced by flavor W 1 /O/W 2 emulsion. • Salt-reduced soy sauce possessed higher aldehydes and alcohols content. • Various factors and environmental stresses were investigated to obtain stable flavor W 1 /O/W 2 emulsion.